My ONE LOVE life

In 1996 (at age 26) I left the creature comforts of the US and ventured abroad to represent my country as a Peace Corps Volunteer, for better or for worse… I was sent to the Caribbean. At that time I had little knowledge of the Caribbean but was warned, “there are a lot of angry black people there.” With this in the back of my mind, I ventured off to dig holes in the sand and plant stakes for my hut on the beach. Ha!

Of course the Caribbean was nothing like I imagined Read the rest of this entry »

So how do we teach our children about slavery? It’s such an ugly thing, and yet it’s there. At some point my daughter is going to learn about it in school, or from me, or maybe even from a friend. And even harder, at some point she’s going to learn that blacks in this country have been and sometimes are treated badly simply because of the color of their skin. And yes she will learn that Africans were once stolen from Africa and brought to the US and West Indies as slaves, by white people, people who look like her mother. I am not sure how to fully process this with myself, much less her.

I have been thinking about it a lot since a girlfriend of mine said she planned to teach her 6 year old about slavery. Read the rest of this entry »

I try to keep gratitude alive and a part of my everyday life. And I try to impart it to my children. At dinner time my 2 year old usually leads us through the ritual of taking turns saying what we are grateful for today. This evening we spent dinner at the park with some friends, so we skipped our evening ritual.

While I lay in bed with the girls, who share one full-sized bed, I told them I was grateful they had chosen me for their mom. Read the rest of this entry »

I grew up in a small town and spent the majority of my early years primarily around white people. I remember the first time I touched a black person. It was my Sophomore year of high school. We had sat near each other in classes since Jr. high and often got in trouble for talking. One day I built up some nerve and asked if I could touch his hair. I was just curious. We were in math class at the time but he obliged. It was anti-climatic and I think we were both left with this feeling of “why did I just do that?”

There doesn’t seem to be any graceful way in the US to get to know someone of another race. We seem to have built such a wall around talking about our perceived and known differences. Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t get a chance to watch Oprah very often. But I do remember, more often these days, her once saying that life changed for her at age 40. At this point in her life, she said she had really stopped caring about what others thought about her. Even though I am not yet 40 I feel like this freedom is rapidly approaching. I am tolerant of so much more than I used to be.

But my daily grind continues to be the world’s reaction to my family. I am asked, almost daily, in a variety of iterations, “Are they yours?” Read the rest of this entry »